


Bring Her Home

by starsandgraces



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgraces/pseuds/starsandgraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek comes to Lydia for help.</p>
<p>
  <b>Spoilers for 3x02, Chaos Rising.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Her Home

Lydia closes her eyes and presses her cheek against the cool plaster of the wall, taking small steps down the hall towards the kitchen. She's still sweaty and shaking from the dream that woke her screaming; the dream she can't remember no matter how hard she tries. Her mom's away for work this week and Allison isn't answering her phone, so Lydia pours herself a glass of water and sits at the table, slowly sipping it as she tries to calm down.

If she phoned her dad, he'd come over right away. Lydia dismisses the idea almost as soon as it occurs to her. She's sixteen, not six. Only a little kid goes running to her parents after a bad dream. _Think about this logically. Everyone has nightmares sometimes_ , she tells herself.

Of course, not everyone lives in Beacon Hills, where nothing has a mundane explanation. She sighs and drains the water in one long swallow.

Her phone buzzes and she snatches it up from the table, hoping Allison's finally decided to check her phone. Two new texts from Danny and one from Stiles. "Oh my god," Lydia mutters, ignoring that and opening Danny's conversation. For once, it's nice to think about normal teenage things, like those hot new twins.

She sends Danny a quick reply about how they should totally double date before she tries Allison again, but this time her phone doesn't even ring. It goes straight to voicemail.

"Allison, it's me," Lydia says. "Where _are_ you? Something happened. I don't know if it's, like, a meaningful thing, but with all the crazy stuff lately... anyway. Can you just call me as soon as you get this? Thanks. Love you." She ends the call with a sigh and draws her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly.

For a moment, she rethinks calling her father. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have some company right now.

Before she can act on the thought, a sudden hammering on the front door makes Lydia's heart leap in her chest, pounding wildly. Her phone lights up barely a second later, flashing Stiles' face at her.

Something must have happened to Allison. Her nightmare, that was because she _knew_.

Lydia bolts to the front door, ignoring Stiles again—he'll forgive her, he always does—and yanks it open, expecting Mr Argent to be waiting for her on the other side. "Is Allison okay?" she blurts, twisting her fingers in her hair anxiously. Then she pauses, her eyes correcting the scenario her brain has invented.

It's not Mr Argent. Stiles is there, one hand still extended to bang on the door and the other holding his phone against his ear. Behind him is Derek Hale, asshole extraordinaire, cradling a blonde girl against his chest.

"Allison's fine," Stiles says, looking a little puzzled. "Why wouldn't she be? I mean, she's not... uninvolved in the shit going down tonight, but—she's Allison. She can take care of herself."

"What the hell, Stiles?" she snaps, planting her hands on her hips. She's relieved, mainly, but he made her worry and it's not as if Lydia wasn't already on edge. "I couldn't get her on her cell and it's the middle of the night."

"Yeah, turns out supernatural monsters don't care so much about getting their beauty sleep."

They push past her into the house, and Lydia has no choice but to follow them. "Is that Erica?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. "She smells like death."

"That's because she's dead," Stiles says quietly. He can't quite meet Lydia's eye when he says it, and with a sinking feeling, she realises he's telling the truth.

Lydia stares at Erica—at Erica's _body_ —and a detached part of her wonders how she didn't notice it before. It's so obvious. She clamps both hands over her mouth and turns away, retching, struggling to keep the bile from rising up her throat.

She's seen too many dead people since this year began.

"You have to bring her back," Derek says, his voice rough. She glances at him, keeping her eyes on his face and not the body in his arms. His eyes are red-rimmed and the half-dried tracks of tears stand out on his cheeks. When Derek speaks again, his words are clipped, tight. As if he's having to force them out. "The same way you brought back Peter. It's the full moon tonight."

"Like I don't keep track these days," Lydia mutters. She jabs a finger in Derek's direction. "Look, yesterday _he_ hated me for bringing back Peter, even though I didn't exactly have a lot of choice in the matter. Why should I do it again now? I mean, if I even _can_. FYI, I'm into math, not magic."

Derek lays Erica out on the nearest couch, his fingers lingering almost reverently against her cheek. "Because I don't want you to do it for me. I want you to do it for her."

"Kind of the same thing, don't you think?" she asks acidly. "Considering Erica can't exactly speak for herself right now."

"Enough people have died," Stiles says, stepping between Lydia and Derek with his hands held up. "Maybe this time, someone gets to live? I mean, eventually."

"If I help— _if_ , because I'm not promising I can do this—then you have to tell me everything that's happening." She crosses her arms firmly across her chest. "No more secrets. That's my condition."

Stiles and Derek exchange a meaningful look, and then Derek says, "Fine, I promise, just—we have to hurry. The moon won't stay up forever."

"Again, I know about the moon. You can tell me what's going on in the car on the way to your old house. That's where we have to be." Lydia has no idea exactly _what_ she did to resurrect Peter. All she can do is try to replicate the conditions as closely as possible and hope that, somehow, the results will be replicated as well.

She finds some vaporub in the bathroom and dabs a little onto her top lip before she can bring herself to get in the car with Erica's body. She's relieved to discover it works just as well as it does in the movies.

Derek is true to his word: he tells her everything, with frequent interjections from Stiles. About the alpha pack, about Boyd and Erica, and about a girl called Cora who's supposed to be dead. His sister. Allison's with Scott, Isaac and Peter, trying to hunt Boyd and Cora down before something else goes wrong. Before someone else dies.

"Shouldn't you be with them?" Lydia asks, peering over her shoulder at Derek.

"Scott can handle it," he says quietly. Then he shakes his head. "Scott _has_ to handle it. You can't bring Erica back without me, can you?"

"I don't think so, no," she replies, with only the slightest hesitation. Pretending she can't do something is very different to admitting she can't do something, and it's not a comfortable feeling.

The old Hale house is as creepy as Lydia remembers from her last visit. She wraps her arms tightly around herself as they all climb out of the jeep, looking up at the full moon, which is slowly sinking behind the roof. The shadows it casts are downright eerie.

"We should get inside," she says, plucking at the hem of her cardigan.

Derek nods grimly, his mouth making a thin line, and hoists Erica into his arms. Her head flops back and the moonlight illuminates the extent of the bruising across her face and neck. Lydia turns away with a sob pressing against the inside of her lips. She doesn't let it out.

They walk inside in single file and somehow, Lydia finds herself leading the way into the room where she brought Peter Hale back from the dead. She didn't think she'd know which one it was without a little looking around to jog her memory, but it seems her body remembers that night far better than her mind.

Derek sits on the floor near the hole in the floorboards where Peter was buried. He pulls Erica's body against him, her back to his chest. Lydia realises with a start that he hasn't once stopped touching her, even if the connection was as tenuous as his fingertip against her battered face.

"You should lie down," Lydia says. "You were lying down before."

He nods faintly and lies back, easing Erica down with him. Lydia bites her lip and looks away, turning her attention to the room.

The mirrors are filthy, but that's no surprise: they've been sitting in a burned-out ruin for four months. She runs a finger across the surface of the nearest one and wrinkles her nose at the ash and dust that coats her skin. _Gross_.

Lydia sighs heavily and brushes her hands together until they're as clean as they'll get—without sanitiser, anyway. "Stiles, be a darling and take off your shirt for me."

"...uh, excuse me?"

"Your shirt. I need it to clean the mirrors," she says, enunciating each word carefully.

"Oh! Okay, I gotcha." He scrambles to pull off today's plaid monstrosity, passing it to Lydia. "You'll wash this for me later, right?"

"Stiles, this is more important than your stupid shirt," Derek says from the floor. "Don't make me make you go wait in the car."

Stiles shuts up (for once in his life), but it's probably more because of the corpse lying on top of Derek than Derek himself. He even moves out of the way.

With Stiles' shirt wrapped around her hand, Lydia cleans the worst of the grime off the mirrors. It doesn't need to be perfect, she thinks, as long as they reflect enough of the moonlight onto Derek and Erica. She has to adjust the angle of most of them, since the moon was in a completely different area of the sky the last time she did this. Luckily, _that_ isn't rocket science. She barely even needs to calculate anything.

The last part is the worst. She hesitates for long enough that Stiles notices.

"Can I do anything?" he asks from the corner.

"No," she says, wishing he could. "I think it has to be me. But... thank you."

She suppresses a shudder as she takes Erica's cold hands in hers and wraps the fingers around Derek's wrists. There's no resistance at all and Lydia jerks away as soon as she's sure they won't just slip free again.

"Are you ready?" she asks, and Derek nods once.

Retreating to stand next to Stiles, Lydia takes one last look at Erica's still, expressionless face before she moves the final mirror into position and sends the moonlight streaming down onto them.

There's a moment of silence, and then it begins.

Derek snarls viciously as Erica's claws dig into his skin, but the noise Erica makes is much worse—inhuman and filled with terrible pain. It seems to be coming from somewhere far deeper than her throat; Lydia can't shake the feeling that it's coming from someplace and something else entirely. She convulses in Derek's arms, and Derek can't hold her steady because he's convulsing as well, the red glow leeching out of his eyes. Lydia and Stiles both take an involuntary step backwards.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Stiles asks in a stage-whisper.

Lydia shrugs wordlessly, trying to look blasé— _what, don't_ you _bring people back from the dead all the time?_ —but when Stiles reaches out to grab her hand she lets him, and she even squeezes back a little.

After what seems like hours—but can't have been more than seconds—the two of them stop shaking. The wounds on Derek's wrists close up. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, everything is very still.

Erica's eyes fly open, radiating amber, and she takes a deep, gasping breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this an unofficial prequel to any fic I write from here on out. #ericalives


End file.
